Infinitap Games

I was asked, and I answered! Here's a dev diary talking about working in AAA:

Aside from Valve, which sounds like an amazing and kind of bizarre place to work for (I read their employee handbook that went online awhile ago), and Double Fine, which I only know of because of the Kickstarter project videos they've been doing, are there any other AAA developers out there that have a really cool and creative reputation? I'm not sure if Double Fine is considered a AAA developer, but they've had some pretty big releases.

Did you ever apply to Valve or anywhere like that before you went indie?

I don't know of any AAA devs that have a REALLY creative reputation. There's not a lot of game studios that aren't making sequels or relatively derivative "new" games. Even the top AAA devs (Blizzard, Epic, Naughty Dog) mostly churn out sequels. AAA game development is expensive, so it's understandable everyone is risk adverse.

Double Fine is a strange blend of AAA and indie in that they are the size of a AAA dev but essentially is only doing "indie" projects in that they aren't working for a publisher. I think they basically split the team onto a bunch of projects.

I knew I wanted to go indie, so I didn't apply anywhere when I was leaving High Impact. Before going to High Impact, I applied at Naughty Dog, but they only had an engine programmer position open at that time, and I only had 2 years experience (only as a gameplay programmer), so I didn't get the job.

Did it bother you if you felt like a game you were working on wasn't good? I haven't played the Pixar games, but it looks like they tended to score in the 60s on Metacritic. Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters got an 85, though. No doubt you had a lot less impact on the quality of the final product at big developers due to being part of a large team, and having design decisions and deadlines dictated from above. Is that part of the reason you gravitated to indie development?

Yes it bothered me because I wanted the game to be good, and I worked hard on them, but I just couldn't do everything.

Yes, that's the appealing thing about indie development. If there is a bad decision about the game, that's on me and not because someone completely removed from the development cycle arbitrarily chose something.

I wonder what working with the folks who made ZenoClash and Rock of Ages would be like. Going by their games: Really bizarre. But that may be completely misleading, of course.

ACE Team? Yeah, they make some weird games. I think they are 3 brothers based out of Chile. I think if you live in a country where the cost of living is less, you can afford to make weirder stuff.